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About Me

I am a Ph.D. student at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. I study the History of Biblical Interpretation, which includes Jewish and Christian interpretations of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament. My interests are religion, politics, TV, movies, and reading.

Thursday, June 18, 2015

Book Write-Up: A History of the End of the World, by Jonathan Kirsch

Jonathan Kirsch. A History of the End of the World: How the Most Controversial Book in the Bible Changed the Course of Western Civilization. HarperSanFrancisco, 2006. See here to buy the book.

Jonathan Kirsch is a writer and an attorney. A History of the End of the World
is about the Book of Revelation, both the book itself and also its
impact throughout history. Kirsch goes from prophecy and apocalyptic in
the Hebrew Bible through the twentieth century.

I decided to read this book when I was reading Kevin Timothy O’Kane’s Instigators
of the Apocalypse: How Those with False Interpretations of the Book of
Revelation Influenced Wars and Revolutions in the History of Western
Civilization (see here for my review, and here
for O’Kane’s response to my review). O’Kane argues that certain
interpretations of the Book of Revelation have produced disastrous
results. These interpretations hold that human beings play some role as
agents in the apocalypse: that they are to set up a millennial golden
age before Christ returns, that they are to fight the Antichrist
themselves, that they are to purify the church prior to Christ’s second
coming, or that they are to convert the outer reaches of the world.
According to O’Kane, such approaches have led to wars, persecution, and
oppression, and O’Kane contrasts such approaches with what he believes
is the view of the Book of Revelation, and the correct approach to
eschatology: to wait for Christ to come back and set up the millennial
golden age.

O’Kane critiques Kirsch in his book. First, according to O’Kane (as I
understand him), Kirsch regards the Book of Revelation as part of the
problem, since it manifests an us vs. them mentality. O’Kane, by
contrast, does not believe that the Book of Revelation is the problem,
but rather that the problem is certain interpretations of the Book of
Revelation, which are not faithful to the book itself. Second,
according to O’Kane, Kirsch prefers the allegorical or symbolic
interpretations of the Book of Revelation and views them as a step up
from the Book of Revelation itself. Kirsch, by contrast, supports a
literal interpretation of the Book of Revelation and believes that the
allegorical interpretation marked a step in the wrong direction.

As I was reading O’Kane, I thought that O’Kane’s historical case was
pretty open and shut: O’Kane effectively demonstrated that
postmillennial and amillennial views on eschatology played a significant
role throughout history and had negative results. I wanted to read
Kirsch to see if he interpreted history differently from O’Kane.

It turned out that, in terms of O’Kane’s larger thesis, O’Kane and
Kirsch overlap on a lot of the data. Like O’Kane, Kirsch acknowledges
that the Book of Revelation has a passive eschatology of waiting for
Christ to return and set up the millennium. Kirsch on page 139 makes
the point that Augustine interpreted the millennium as “The Church
Militant and Triumphant.” Kirsch also refers to the medieval idea of a
king who would preside over a golden age prior to the second coming of
Christ, and how various kings in history were trying to fulfill that
role.

There were still clear differences between O’Kane and Kirsch, in
terms of their narratives and their arguments. Whereas Kirsch disputes
that the apostle John wrote the Book of Revelation and discusses the
reluctant acceptance of the book within early Christianity (the West
embraced it, but the East did not so much, according to Kirsch), O’Kane
argues for Johannine authorship of Revelation and raises other
considerations about the book’s acceptance. Unlike O’Kane, Kirsch does
believe that Revelation is part of the problem, for Kirsch portrays its
author as a fanatical, anti-sex, anti-money, misogynist absolutist who
demonized others and felt persecuted (even though, according to Kirsch,
he probably wasn’t). Kirsch can understand the appeal of apocalypticism
to the vulnerable, for it gives them hope, but he seems to believe that
Christianity should concentrate on helping the poor (which, according
to him, is lacking in the Book of Revelation) rather than anxiously
waiting for the end of the world.

And, overall, Kirsch does seem to prefer an allegorical or a symbolic
approach to the Book of Revelation, one that interprets Revelation in
light of spiritual truths (e.g., the battle between good and evil inside
of us) rather than, say, seeking to identify the Antichrist. In a
couple of places, Kirsch appears to suggest that a symbolic approach is
consistent with John’s own intention, since Revelation has symbols (and
yet, overall, Kirsch regards John as one who expected God’s judgment on
the world to come soon, in a literal sense, whereas O’Kane does not seem
to believe that the New Testament really manifests an imminent
eschatology). Kirsch also appears to believe that a lot of the
fanaticism and abuse surrounding the Book of Revelation have been a
departure from Augustine’s “call for a sober reading” (page 152).
(Kirsch talks about Augustine’s symbolic approach to Revelation, while
acknowledging places in which Augustine appears to interpret Revelation
literally.) That raises questions in my mind about what is a literal
and what is a symbolic or allegorical approach, and how that fits into
O’Kane’s thesis. While O’Kane does have problems with the allegorical
approach to Revelation and does well to argue that it contributed to the
idea of a church triumphant (with the persecutions that would accompany
that), not all of the eschatological views that O’Kane critiques are
necessarily allegorical, for they believe in a literal Antichrist. They
may not be entirely literal, either, for they do not appear to take
what Revelation says about the millennium at face value, at least not
entirely. In any case, I can see merit in what both O’Kane and Kirsch
argue, and I think that both allegorical and also literal
interpretations of Revelation can have strengths and drawbacks, in terms
of their effects.

My post thus far has been looking at Kirsch’s book in light of
O’Kane’s book. What do I think about Kirsch’s book by itself, though? I
appreciated how Kirsch interacted with critical scholarship about the
distinction between eschatology and apocalypticism, and also the Book of
Revelation itself. John Collins, Adela Yarbro Collins, Elisabeth
Schussler Fiorenza, and J. Massyngberde Ford are scholars with whom
Kirsch interacts. A point in Kirsch’s book that especially stood out to
me was about how John was exiled to Patmos, and how some scholars have
said that this was unusual in those times and have wondered why John was
not executed instead; one view that Kirsch mentions is that John may
have been from the aristocracy, but that John left that behind to
embrace a life of voluntary poverty and to condemn the establishment
from the margins.

I found Kirsch’s discussion of the ancient reception of the Book of
Revelation to be informative and useful. Overall, Kirsch’s book was
fascinating to me, as one who has been interested in eschatology, for it
goes into how Revelation has been interpreted throughout history, and
why people have found it so intriguing.

In terms of negatives, I do not think that Kirsch was entirely clear
about John’s activity as author of the book. Kirsch seems to think that
John received visions, while also portraying John as one who
consciously drew from the Hebrew Bible, and even pagan myth, in
composing his book. Which was it? Was Revelation the product of
visions or more of a scribal exercise, or could it have been both?
Kirsch also seemed a bit repetitive at times: I lost count of how many
times Kirsch quoted Martin Luther’s statement that he did not see Christ
in the Book of Revelation (though, according to Kirsch, Luther would
later change his tune about Revelation and call the pope the
Antichrist!). Finally, I did not think that Kirsch was particularly
fair to the Left Behind series, depicting the series as
anti-Catholic and anti-Jewish. The anti-Catholic label may fit
somewhat, since the Catholic church in the books does appear to be
allied with the Antichrist; at the same time, the pope is raptured in
the book, as are a number of Catholics. The anti-Jewish label, however,
does not fit the books, in my opinion. Contrary to what Kirsch says,
the Antichrist in the books, Nicolae Carpathia, is not a Jew (as far as I
know), but is a Romanian with Roman descent. There are also a number
of Jewish heroes in the series.

I found Kirsch’s book to be worth the read, and I plan to read other
books by him in the future, particularly his biographies of Moses and
David.